Pianist Lara Downes has had Bach's Goldberg Variations on her mind for quite some time. The music soothed her to sleep as a kid, it fascinated her as a young pianist and it's a subject of conversation on her new blog.

We open this week with Chapter 894 of the Death of Civilization: An actual fistfight broke out in one of the boxes during a Chicago Symphony Orchestra performance last Thursday night. According to police, a man in his thirties started punching a 67-year-old during the second movement of the Brahms Second Symphony after the two started arguing ... over seats.

When you think about blockbuster best-sellers, genres like mystery, crime and romance typically come to mind. Ethical or moral fiction? Not so much. But that's how Jodi Picoult, who has 33 million copies of her books currently in circulation, describes her novels. So how did an author who writes about divisive issues get so popular?